Thread by @AlexandraErin

I love the way that Vampire Survivors gameplay evolves over a 30 minute run. Like the Axe, which moves in an obvious homage to Castlevania's classic axe, but on a top down screen. It does a TON of damage early on if you come at the enemies from the right direction...

...which is useful in the early game when combat still feels like individual engagements, but its fully evolved form loses that element by becoming omnidirectional, as the late game is more about keeping an encroaching horde from reaching you.

Oh, I may be talking about this game a lot. Before someone pops in with, "So you recommend this game?" I do not. My usual recommendation of "You might like this thing, if it's the sort of thing you like." applies times infinity here.

I DO recommend checking it out! Watch gameplay videos, get it on Steam if you're sure of the return policy or willing to risk $3 on a game you might find unplayable. Or check out the browser version - the only in-game controls are directional movement.

poncle.itch.io/vampire-surviv…

NB: I have not tried the browser version so I don't know how it handles, and I don't know if your progress is stored between sessions, which is a key element of the game. But you can at least get a feel for the gameplay, which is unconventional.

Like, it looks and feels very much like a classic arcade action game, but with key differences. The conceit of the game is basically this: it's definitely not Castlevania, and you control your character's movements. Attacks happen automagically, in different patterns by weapon

Unlike classic Castlevania, you can carry up to six weapons and your character will effortlessly attack with all of them. New weapons don't delay or displace old weapons in the sequence, so more weapons = more attacks more often.

Each time you have a chance to gain a new weapon, if you pick one you already have, it goes up a level. These upgrades tend to add even *more* attacks by adding duplicate projectiles. You'll never be offered a new weapon if you don't have space for it...

...so once you have accepted a sixth weapon, your character's attack loadout is set for the rest of the run. Doing this early rather than fishing for specific weapons lets you focus on upgrades.

You have six accessory slots to go with the six weapon slots. Accessories give passive benefits, and some of them synergize with a particular weapon to trigger an "evolution" when the weapon is fully leveled up and you have the accessory and open a chest.

The evolutions are game changers. Visually they tend to alter the weapon into a similar type of weapon but a more heavy metal version. They're also much more powerful and often have riders like critical damage or vampiric HP drain on enemies.

The weapon patterns and evolutions more so than their stats are what defines them. Some of them fire off in purely random directions, which is annoying in the early game but devastating to your foes when they're heavily upgraded and you're swarmed later in the game.

The characters... and there are at least 11 of them at this stage of early access, and the selection screen has room for more... are distinguished by what weapon they start with (leaving 5 expansion slots) and usually a single passive buff, though some are more elaborate.

The default character unlocked at the beginning, who is definitely not Simon Belmont, is equipped with the whip, which periodically sends out a lashing attack horizontally in the direction your sprite is facing. (Movement is eight directional but sprites only face left or right).

So until you get a second weapon, he can really only take on foes you can come at from the side. Gennario, who is available for unlocking with in-game treasure from the start, is probably the best character for learning the gameplay.

Gennario's default weapon is the knife, which is the *only* weapon that always attacks in whatever direction you're facing/moving, including diagonal directions when you're moving. So his early game fighting style is very intuitive: face the enemy you want to attack.

And his passive buff is that any attack that generates projectiles (which includes the lashes of the whip), he gets another one. Double firepower at level 1. And while his buff doesn't scale with level as most of the others do, each new weapon you pick up *also* gets the bonus.

Gennaro is the first character I survived a run with and the character I take when I want to have a mindless mayhem session, but I personally find that the builds I favor with him become tenser than others in the final minutes, as they depend so much on actively directing fire.

Whereas other characters whose buffs focus on things like rate of fire or area of effect have more hectic early games due to a lack of control, but work well for endgame builds where you can just stand still inside a magical Circle of Death and BTFO.

And there is a thematically delightful unlockable character whose starting weapon so far seems to be unique (i.e., you can't unlock it to be found by other characters in a run) and whose buff is that every 20 experience levels they gain another projectile, to a max of 60.

Meaning at level 1 they have no buff, at level 20 they are the equal of Gennaro, and at level 60... which is for me typically around the last third of a 30 minute run and less than 10 levels before maxing out the character... they have ridiculous amounts of firepower.

And their unique weapon is one of the ones that gets flung in a random direction, which *sucks* until you manage to get a second weapon.

But it bounces off enemies to keep doing damage, and by the endgame you might be scattering 9 of them at once.

At that point you're very likely to be surrounded on all sides, which as the old military saying goes, simplifies things considerably. At that point random fire distribution is a feature, not a bug, as it helps spread the damage you're dealing around.

And a weapon that is flung in random directions and then bounces away in effectively random directions to do more damage... very useful in that situation.

Whereas the knife that was so useful at the start of the game... well, it's not doing nothing, but even if it's fully upgraded into the equivalent of a firehose full of pointy death, you still have to point it, and keep changing directions to wherever the horde is closest.

Which... I'm trying to describe an experience of game mechanics in text, which isn't the best medium. But it's very interesting to me how the game's 30 minute progression changes along with the available weapons.

Like, garlic puts a field that damages and debuffs enemies around you. Against the starting enemies, this effectively gives you an on-demand melee attack: walk into them and they die.

Later in the game, enemies aren't dying on contact with the field, so you have to be more judicious because the faster you move towards/through enemies, the faster they move through the garlic aura and the less damage they take.

But if you take up a position and hold it, they have to walk the whole way through the garlic field, and the weakening effect makes them suffer extra knockback from your attacks, prolonging their time spent struggling to reach you and protecting you further.

It goes from being a viable attack weapon in itself to being a component of a Fully Automated Luxury Space Defender.